Seems really unfounded....up to the manufacturer how they want to provide secure boot ( could support any number of keys ) and is completely allowable to be able to turn off secure boot. Microsoft is just saying that it must be turned on for a default windows 8 installed system. Which is logical. Its up to the user then if they want to turn it off and be exposed to any associated risks.

Well, at least someone will be loving win8 to bits

The people at stardock !

What gets me, is microsoft went out of their way to get as much feedback as possible for win8, then completely ignored it and told us we will get used to it. I think they wanted us all to go "OOOOOOOOOO, its amazing", and when we didn't do that they just flipped the bozo bit on us and treated us like ignorant kids that will just have to learn new ways.

as a software developer...

I agree!

for starters, as a software developer, I know one thing about data collection.....log everything in its raw form. This means if you decide later you actually wanted something else, then you don't have to go recollect your data. You may not actually use all the data, and the data may not in a state you can easily mine it, but you still log every bit of information you get. Thats data collection 101 :-)

Someone probably forgot to tell the software devs they were dealing with sensitive information and they simply thought they were being clever and proactive by collecting everything.... and generally, that kind of decision would be a developer decision.